This is Scotland: A Country in Words and Pictures

By Daniel Gray

A Scotsman and an Englishman, a camera and a notebook...
McCredie's lens and Gray's words search out everyday Scotland - a Scotland of flaking pub signs and sneaky fags outside the bingo, Italian cafes and proper fitba grounds. A nation of beautiful, haggard normality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luath Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910324356

Daniel Gray

Daniel Gray is a writer, broadcaster and magazine editor from York. He has published a host of critically acclaimed books on football and social history, edits Nutmeg magazine and presents the When Saturday Comes podcast. Daniel has presented history programmes on television and written for the BBC. His previous book, The Silence of the Stands, was shortlisted for Football Book of the Year at the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2023. @d_gray_writer

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DANIEL GRAY

This is Scotland is Daniel Gray’s fifth book. His first solo work, Homage to Caledonia: Scotland and the Spanish Civil War (Luath), was turned into a two-part television documentary for STV. His second, Stramash: Tackling Scotland’s Towns and Teams (Luath), received widespread acclaim, with The Herald calling it ‘A brilliant way to rediscover Scotland’, which made getting lost in Cumbernauld while researching the book worthwhile. Gray’s most recent work, Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters: Travels through England’s Football Provinces, was published by Bloomsbury and, according to The New Statesman is ‘A delight’. An exiled Yorkshireman, he lives in Leith.

danielgraywriter.com

@d_gray_writer

ALAN McCREDIE

Alan McCredie is the photographer behind 100 Weeks of Scotland, a celebrated online project documenting all aspects of Scottish life in the two years before the independence referendum. It appears weekly via The Scotsman and is published as a book by Luath Press. McCredie has been a freelance photographer for a decade, working with most major agencies in Scotland and beyond. He has specialised in theatre and television but is perhaps best known for his documentary and travel photography. A member of the Document Britain photo collective, he is a Perthshire man lost to Leith.

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@alanmccredie

This is Scotland

A Country in Words and Pictures

Daniel Gray and Alan McCredie

Luath Press Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published 2014

ISBN: 978-1-910021-59-0

ISBN (EBK): 978-1-910324-35-6

The publishers acknowledge the support of Creative Scotland towards the publication of this volume.

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Words © Daniel Gray, Pictures © Alan McCredie

Cover, book and map design by Daniel Gray

For Jenny, Eilidh and Joe.

ALAN McCREDIE

To the memory of Tony Benn, who encouraged, and encourages, me.

DANIEL GRAY

Contents

Introduction

Leith

Grangemouth

Cowdenbeath

Dundee

Pitlochry

Caithness & Sutherland

Hebrides

Inverclyde

Govan

Doon the Watter

Galashiels

Borderlands

THE SCOTLAND WE SAW

INTRODUCTION

This is not Scotland as the brochures display it. This is everyday Scotland – not a nation seen wearing kilts or in the middle of eccentric rituals and festivities but a nation of beautiful, haggard normality.

It is a place of Tuesday mornings at the bus station, not solstice ceilidhs or bagpipes by foggy lochs.

This Scotland is seen at a once-in-a-lifetime juncture, yet it could be any era: it is just that the clothes are different. While politicians and people with too much time to think became fixated with Ayes and Naws, this Scotland just went about things as usual. It always will. We wanted to see the normal moments it lived in and document them, to put on paper the daily grind you set your watch by, not annual and rare dates on a calendar. Something to look back on, something to read and realise in years to come that not much really changes when humans are around. Something to draw comfort from and smile with.

Our book does not claim to be exhaustive, academic or deep, but seeks to offer a fond glimpse of and a flirty glance at Scotland. This country is quick and right to celebrate its lochs, hills and glens. Yet we think there is romance too in the run-down town and the battered old pub, and poetry in urban decay. It is chips in the rain with your arms around someone you’ve just met and want to kiss, not haggis and forced dancing with businessmen on Burns Night.

Further, there is more fascination for us in a gaggle of pensioners sucking on smokes outside the bingo than in epic Highland moonscapes. This is Scotland seen not with an itinerary or through an internet search, but via an aimless bimble.

The words and pictures are meant to complement one another, each filling in gaps, but not so fully as to leave nothing to the imagination. Portions of overheard conversations add context and paint the air, social history and local tales speak of yesterdays well lived. These histories remind us that it is very often the small, neglected places which make a country, if not the world.

There was no rationale for our route, other than a vague feeling that